School Readiness - Basildon School Readiness Project

Basildon School Readiness Project has been established to address concerns, by schools, parents and early years centres, that children are not always school ready.

On communicating with the parents of children preparing to start school it soon became apparent that they too were confused as to what it is actually meant by the term 'school ready'.

The School Readiness Project team, made up of representatives from early years, education, health and children's centres, has developed the project over a period of time. The starting point was to develop a common understanding of School Ready. This was achieved in 2015 through a series of workshops and parent consultation events and resulted in the production of our School Readiness Campaign Poster [1Mb].

Next stage was to ensure that we were engaging key partners and also linking to other projects and resources to avoid duplication; an example is the training provided by both BEST and Essex County Council Early Years Service.

A series of workshops for practitioners and parents have been delivered over the past 12 months focused on a variety of topics e.g. Communication skills including reading and writing, 'Ready for School', 'Tools for School, Engaging parents , Talk Listen Cuddle (TLC) campaign.

Promoting the school ready message

The aim was to embed the school ready messages i.e.

R is for RESILIENT, adaptable and always willing to try;

E is for ENQUIRING, curious, asking questions and exploring;

A is for ASSURED, confident in their own abilities; independent in their self-care.

D is for DETERMINED, striving to improve and showing pride at success;

Y is for YOUNG, eager to learn and full of potential

And who, when feeling safe and secure will:

happily separate from their parent and carer

express their needs and communicate their ideas

communicate with others developing friendship groups

try new things

be prepared to get dirty and messy

develop a growing awareness of the world around them and other people

celebrate their family and those of others

have a developing phonological awareness, enjoy being playful with sounds , rhymes and words

begin to take turns and develop an understanding of sharing

respect others , resources and their environment

BE HAPPY

Future plans

Continue to build and develop the network of agencies working and learning from each other. The development of the integrated 2year check and pre-birth to 19 Service (implementation 2017), will provide more opportunities.

Ensure that families are also learning from each other- helping to dispel worries and misunderstanding about what school ready means.

Continue to provide training and support to early years practitioners and parents